Contemporary Posters - Original contemporary/vintage Polish posters

The National Jewish Theater (E.R. Kaminski) continues a 100+ year history in Poland of performing musicals and dramas in Yiddish. The current repertory includes the classical works by Abraham Goldfaden, Sholem Aleichem, Isaac Peretz, Jakub Gordin and Solomon Anski as well as more contemporary dramas by Isaac Babel, Arthur Miller, and others, whose works refer to Jewish themes. Today, productions are simultaneously translated into Polish & English.

The Jewish theater was revived almost immediately after the end of World War II. In the 1950s, two local theaters united as the National Jewish Theater and moved to Warsaw in 1955. It was named after Esther Rachel Kaminska [1870-1925] (the founder of Warsaw's Jewish theater in 1888) and the mother of Ida Kaminska who was the theater's star performer & director until she emigrated in 1968. Since 1970, the State Jewish Theatre in Warsaw has been in its current location on Grzybowski Square and has been led by actor & director Szymon Szurmiej.

Different theories are postulated as to the motivation of the Communist government's support of the National Jewish Theater, since the Jewish population of post-World War II Poland was and still is a small fraction of its former self and of the general citizenry. Szymon Szurmiej once explained, "This theatre is part and parcel of Polish culture."

Contemporary Posters, Prior Products Inc., 115 Central Park West, New York, NY 10023-4198 USA

Original contemporary/vintage polish posters

Polish Posters of the Jewish Theater